Soul Awakening

A vivid light splits through darkness, depth and despair

Opening my heart to new beginning, diving deep inside to go aware

Nothing, and no one can block your way in finding the truth

Get comfortable with yourself, leave the messy things, be in sooth

Somewhere beyond the deep horizons, is a place you belong

Where an orchestra plays your favorite sweet melancholic song

Save from vultures that feasted on my loving and peaceful heart

The hungry predators preyed upon to tear me apart

Rising from the past failures winning the battle of ebbs

Still finding courage, gaining strength to stand upon my legs

The scars will heal, and you will feel lighter and better

You will change and blossom,  to get more positive and wiser

Love is not the only endeavor to hang  and hold on forever

Open your soul to new awakening, feel the nature’s hidden treasure

Essence of Peace

The world is going through unprecedented chaos

Wars, hatred, confusion is  looming widely across

Death and destruction is bringing enormous loss

Conflicts are raging high, the affected people are living in pathos

Love and hate are closely related with one another

It is only in the human nature  to feel certain cloud cover

Hating someone leaves scars that are too ugly to ponder

Avoid toxic people, fear the path of darkness, feel better

Elegance  is when the inside is as beautiful as your face

The further you drift from hate, the more beauty you embrace

Forgive your enemies, let your anger pass and tenderness surface

It is only the light that can drive out darkness and bring grace

Good things are hard to achieve,  and bad things trouble free to grab

It is very difficult to save a fellow human,  but easy to stab

Freedom  from prejudice,  discrimination, snobbishness is better to nab

The worst sin towards humanity is violence, that needs a dab

The Night of Solitude

The night is murky and lonely, lights have gone out

After showing their beautiful effects, stars enshroud

The moon has hidden her face behind the clouds

Stormy winds have silenced their sounds

Colour of spring is fading away in oblivion

Stop a while, the atmosphere is full of passion

Sing a song for me, full of joy and exhilaration

The confusion buried in my heart has no easy solution

When there is resolve, why to stay untraced?

How many dreams from the beginning, I have braced

Alas!  When my eyes opened, dreams have fled.

Leaving me to lament, the mind body and heart to bled

It is not so easy to suppress the bounties of emotions

Wounds may be healed but scars can’t be cured by lotions

One can forget the pain by pretending to be fine

But it returns when the loneliness and solitude combine

Inayatullah is a well-known poet, essayist, and academic from India. He is a regular contributor to renowned international poetry groups and journals. His weekly posts “Sunday Slice,”  has a wide readership and has earned him recognition  in scholarly forums for providing value based education to the student community. His poetry covers a variety of themes and has earned him many accolades.

I Can’t Stop Loving You
‎
‎

Is time new? ls time old?

‎How can I say to you?

‎How am I to know?

‎Why is it snowing?

‎Why is your everything without me?

‎The world is motionless.

‎I want to back in time

‎I want to back in you

‎I want to feel the spring of magic moment

‎Love won’t end

‎Time won’t change the sun.

‎

‎Give me another chance

‎Come back and touch my heart

‎You are still living here

‎I am not the slave of time

‎Was l wrong? Were you wrong?

‎Who will break the cell of egg?

‎It is l who am always ready

‎Hear my heart and  touch my arms

‎You are everywhere

‎You are around my dream

‎You may be false, your love may be false But I am true

‎My love is true

‎I have never divided my mind into two

‎I have never walked another way

‎I have read the tears of my love

‎Take my heart into your heart

‎Take my life

‎My love is true and timeless

‎It is virgin and pure

‎I can’t stop loving you.

‎

‎Ask your soul about me

‎Ask yourself about me

‎Let me know your answer.

‎I don’t care your answer

‎I love you

‎And l can’t stop loving you.

Women Studies and Women Writings: Sultana’s Dream

Examine Begum Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain’s feminist speculative utopian fiction “Sultana’s Dream” with textual references and critical perspectives.

Begum Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain’s Sultana’s Dream is a hallmark experimentalist avant-garde Bengali Renaissance story-telling of magical fantasy and surrealistic utopian fiction, chronicling the documentary testament of women’s revolutionary envisionings toward salvation from patriarchal misogyny within the cosmos of western colonialism. Sister Sara’s acquaintanceship is a blessing of that silver lining foretelling of women’s rights’ movement awareness campaignings throughout the post-futility of egalitarian feminist microcosmic world in Ladyland. As a pioneering forerunner of womens’ literature, the then authorial narratorial personae is considered as a heretic, heathen, pagan, agnostic and sceptic idolatress for her groundbreaking canonical narrative, “Sultana’s Dream”.

Sultana’s exploratory adventure of the utopian wonderland of a promised land of New Jerusalem unravels the audacity and resoluteness of Her Royal Highness’s sovereignty and integrity. The Queen of the swargiya’s boldness, fierceness and aggressive traits are lionized for emerging triumphant victor transcending predatory perpetrators in the visages, masques, personages and imagoes of imperialistic masculine feuding lords. Banishment of zenanas and patronage of mardanas satirically extrapolates the decline of male authoritarian dominance and subsequent uprising of the female reign to throne. This subversion of power polity is a swashbuckling spectacle and furthermore witnesses dilapidation of crumbling hierarchies upheld by traditional conventions of the then milieu. For instance, the domiciling of police commissioners and magistrates into the boudoirs underscores the core essence of female utopian officialdom that doesn’t peremptorily trials lawsuits at the expense of innocent residents of the city of naivety and gullibility. Hence, Sara’s repartee to Sultana’s conspicuous persiflage entails transcendental philosophic humility and altruism, “It is our religious duty to love one another and to be absolutely truthful.”

Despite veiling purdaah of pardanashin culture, women of aristocracy and elitism exhibit unsurpassing charisma in juxtaposition to their countervailing counterparts as showcased by the stalwart public intellectualism/educationalism and iconoclastic socio political treatises of the authoress. Begum Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain’s memorial engraving of Sultana’s Dream enmeshes her modernistic and realistic perspectives of femininity to meteoritic and nebulous phenomenological transformation in the era of scientific revolution and technological progress. This is starkly evident in the embellishments of the accolades and laurels achieved by the Headmistresses and her legion of distinctive comradely school girls in establishing the hall of fame solar and hydroelectric power projects energy schemes. Collective welfarism of the cooperative society is fostered by the solidarity and fraternity of the utilitarian feminist utopia. Restoration and reformation policies abolishing stereotypical obsolete gendered expectations limelights the contributory significance behind the crusade of the wave of feminism that was published in the then The Indian Ladies Magazine Madras (1905).

In this fairyland masculinity is emasculated because of the castration threat [penis effect] and commodification of femininity by the male gaze is thus dismantled. Hence voyeuristic perspectives of masculinity are inverted aftermath of fetishization and libidinization of the masculine objects of feminine subjectivity. The extradition of male in the mardanas have secluded them in a mirror image of the traditional culture of purdah. Effeminacy of men have transformed the role of the women as lionesses and tigresses captivators of “veteran mannish” through male enclosure enchantment. The male characters are deprived of their autonomy and agency through demasculinization and the female characters are overpowered with their calibre and intellect. “Solar ovens, rainwater harvesters, water balloons and pollution free hydrogen aircrafts” are exemplary facets of the ecocritical feminism harboured by the clairvoyance of the Queen of Ladyland: “We dive deep into the ocean of knowledge and try to find out the precious gems, which nature has kept in store for us. We enjoy nature’s gifts as much as we can.” Koh-i-Noor and the Peacock Throne are prospects of metaphorical power relations, power polity and power dynamics that the Ladyland’s Queen disavowed but avowed passive resistance and peace mongering with a consortium of mardanas.    

Further Reading, References, Podcasts and Endnotes

Chapter Title: Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain (1880-1932), Women’s Political and Social Thought, An Anthology, Hilda L. Smith and Berenice A. Caroll, Indiana University Press 2000.

Wikipedia Reading

A Brief Textual Analysis of Sultana’s Dream, Sudeshna Majumdar, Assistant Professor of English, Rampurhat College 

Behind the Scenes – Sultana’s Dream

Fabian&Fred

56 subscribers

_Nature_

I hear the silence of the water in every morning walk.

A tree communicate with another tree through their roots and i feel their heart beat as i embrace that tree.

I belong to the nature as the nature live under my skin.

I fly with the eagles.

I run with the lions.

I play with the elephants in the mud.

I am a bridge between the perfect and the imperfection.

I am the image of the beauty and the dark.

As i was the guilty that burns the tree without a warning.

I cut the trees and i make a home.

I took the fishes in my plate.

I am the dangerous animal of all and nature keep supporting me in so Many different and extraordinary ways.

That the difference between human and nature.

I am not the creator but i am that little bee that trying for days to put the nectar  in the nest of the Queen. I was only a small ant that was looking for food.

I am the perfect and imperfect nature that will become the Dreamland of every living being 

I start to forgive this imperfect world and spread a new message of kindness and generosity.

Nature teach me to be free but not greed .

To be open but not manipulated.

To be the real me in any circumstances and accept my responsibilities.

Nature, only teach us how we can understand ourselves and become the real one.

The pureness is not easy but it is not impossible.

Dear Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie,

Dear Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, I want to let you know that you saved a young boy. I want to let you know that you revealed a young boy to himself. I want to let you know that you made a young boy see himself. I want to let you know that you made a young boy feel seen. I want to let you know that you led a young boy towards healing. I want to let you know that you gave a young boy a voice. I want to let you know that you made a young boy see the world better. I want to let you know that the young boy began to seek for more, that the young boy became a citizen of the world, that the young boy decided not to die again, that the young boy began to walk with a surer gait, that the young boy decided to give life a chance, that the young boy began a journey of seeking for the meaning of his life.

Dear Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, I want to let you know that a young boy is still alive because of you.

Nearer To Ourselves

For Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

When our stories were far-fetched

You brought them closer to us.

When our stories meant only one thing

You made them versatile.

When we didn’t understand well,

You cared to explain.

When the stories were one-sided

You made them balanced.

You made us inquisitive.

You made us ask questions

You gave us a mirror to peek at ourselves.

You lighted up the gifts!

You said no to the silences.

You sat down,

Bore the pain,

Heard the calling.

And you answered the calling,

So that others could hear theirs too!

Isaac Dominion Aju is a Nigerian writer whose works have appeared in different literary publications. In the analysis of his creative nonfiction in Penned In Rage Journal (UK), his work was compared to Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Half Of A Yellow Sun on the theme of identity. 

School — The Golden Garden of Childhood

(Dedicated to Graduates)

School — a sacred trace etched in my heart,

Each letter a memory, each day a part.

Here we learned life’s very first truth,

Here began each dream, each light of youth.

Classmates’ laughter, teachers’ wise tone,

Moments engraved, in our hearts alone.

Notebooks and pens won’t fade from mind,

Each second a memory, one of a kind.

The echo of the final bell now rings,

Eyes full of tears, hearts with longings.

The future calls — the paths unfold,

But school remains in hearts of gold.

Thank you, dear teachers, your love a stream,

Your lessons the staff that holds our dream.

Farewell, our school — you’ve always been

Our first stairway to the stars unseen.

Jo‘rayeva Marjona Baxtiyorovna was born on October 18, 2003, in the Termiz district of Surxondaryo region, Uzbekistan.

In 3 Minutes of Listening

The beat

of this country

is near

everlasting

bells ringing long ago

and now

the brokenness healing

blowing down walls

and hearts bursting open

with glorious endless love

seeing

through the trees

branches open to all of us

even when we cut them down

treehouse built by Daddy

for children touching the sky

with dreams of flight

and no fear of falling

cloud pillows

and flying carpets

when our fathers leave us

by dying on the vine

we will sob within ourselves

growing older

in a world whirling too fast

until we realize

not fast enough.

Sacrifice

Books opened

to torn out pages

wondering why someone did that

when trees died

to make the paper pages

and sometimes the ink

made with blood…

Wisdom

My 93-year-old mother laughs

and my wife does a dance

in the center of the living room

as 3 old people remember

there’s more to come.